Love at First Sight?-What a Lie!
by Fuyukai Desu
Summary: How much trouble can two students cause, one the school president and the other a newcomer? So much that it'd cost the school millions of dollars to repair, that's how much! Aisha and Elsword, though with many hidden words for each other, express their hatred openly. The school is their battlefield until they realize that they can't lie to their hearts-and each other's-anymore.
1. Chapter 1

_**Elsword: Rune Slayer  
>Aisha: Elemental Master<br>Rena: Wind Sneaker  
>Raven: Blade Master<br>Eve: Code - Battle Seraph  
>Chung: Iron Paladin<br>Ara: Sakra Devanam  
>Add: Lunatic Psyker<strong>_

**RS x EM foreber *^***

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><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

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><p>He absolutely loathed her. This girl. With crazy-colored hair. That was an annoying purple.<p>

All he did was dryly comment on how if she looked down her shirt, the most she'd see were the vast great plains of Africa.

Right, she was flat. And he told her, just in case she missed it or anything. Because the way she acted made it seem like she did.

_"Who do you think you are?" A random girl with purple hair and eyes of the same but darker color entered the room and snapped at him. "Feet off of the desk! And what are you reading, a porn magazine?!"  
>"Even if I was, you sure as hell wouldn't be featured in it. Look down a bit, and what'd be on your chest? Nothing."<em>

Maybe he had said something afterwards that was inappropriate and made her turn bright red. But a certain brunette teacher had decided to walk in just at that sweet moment in which he wanted to savor and said, "ELSWORD! DETENTION! AND SCRUB ALL THE HALLWAYS AFTER SCHOOL!"

Grape-headed, flat-chested, unattractive know-it-all school president Aisha Greimyst gave him a smirk afterwards before flippantly turning around and tossing a strand of hair behind her shoulder.

Oh, how he absolutely loathed her. With a burning passion.

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><p>But apparently not everyone thought so of the petite, talented, and quite cute girl in Velder High. Most of the guys there, in fact, were her fans, and just chased her everywhere she went. She had taken up the habit of sneaking up to the roof and eating there in silent solitude and just enjoying the weather up there to escape their desperate clutches. Any boy out there that was not pulled to her like a magnet was either on the same end of the north pole as she was (basically just not attracted because opposites attract) or already had a girlfriendcrush. And she was glad for those kinds of heavenly boys on earth, for she could actually talk to them properly without them going full-out adoration and "WILL YOU DATE ME" on her.

But that was not always so, because she used to be the most unpopular nerd there was at this school. That was, until she decided to accept a stupid dare made by one of her friends and came to school in the cutest clothes and style of hair there was. THEN did all the males start swooning over her cute figure, even when she had returned to her old hairstyle of having her bangs cover one eye.

And so Aisha sat there at the rooftop, thinking all of these things while slowly eating her bento away. She was looking up at the endlessly blue sky and wondering about sentimental statements when she heard the door to her secret place slam open with a string of curses.

"Why in the hell didn't they warn me about freaking fangirls that would run me all over to the ground?!" The irritating redheaded brat she had met earlier closed the door behind him, his eyes still peeled to the ground, muttering more things about his misfortune in landing at this school. He didn't seem to realize that he wasn't alone until Aisha set her bento on the ground and dusted her school uniform's skirt off and cleared her throat.

"Why hello there, Elsword Sieghart! Are you enjoying your first day of school?"

He glared at her with ruby red eyes. "Fuck no. I never liked it. Not only that but firstly off in the morning I'm told off by a grape-headed flat chick who just thinks she knows everything in this world!" he scoffed. "Then I just try to get a decent meal at this goddamned school and instead every girl comes flocking to me and asks me things like, 'Will you marry me?' and 'Can I touch your chest?' What in the actual fuck!"

"Your mouth needs some soap," she murmured, laughing lightly inside though. His situation was much like hers, and if her eyes bothered to actually focus, she would see that he wouldn't be that bad-looking at all.

"And your chest needs some enhancement cream or something," he growled, leaning against the wall adjacent from her position.

"What is with you and flat-chested girls?" Her amethyst eyes sparked with bright annoyance. "Seriously! I'd bet that your d-d-di-" Her face slowly darkened into a crimson haze as she attempted to pronounce the word but her innocent conscience just wouldn't allow it.

He grinned smugly at her. "My what? My dog? Sorry, I don't have a dog. I have a hamster though."

"Elsword Sieghart...!" Her blush faded away in that instant and she summoned her staff in almost-uncontrolled rage. "Come here...!"

Elsword blinked once, then twice. Then he realized the situation he was in. A Rune Slayer, albeit quite a strong one, was probably currently not up to face a master of elements who was most likely contemplating how to kill him right now. Her thoughts right now would be, "Should I shock him with more volts than his body could hold?" or "Should I freeze his hands and feet first before stabbing his eyes out?"

Last resort. How he hated the situations he wound up in.

Elsword inched his way over to the side of the rooftop and leaned out a bit before shouting in his loudest voice. "GIRLS! I'M GOING TO BE RAPED BY THE SCHOOL PRESIDENT AISHA GREIMYST! HELP ME!~"

Now it was Aisha's turn to realize what kind of situation she was going to have to put up with. Especially since she was the president. All those complaints that were going to be filed in, the rumors that were going to stain the airs of the hallways wherever she walked, and maybe even the overthrowing of her clutches on this school... "You're completely suicidal," she said. "Your FANGIRLS are going to sexually harass you. And I'll just leave and pretend I never saw anything that was against the school rules, because I'm lenient like that." But tomorrow would be hell. Or maybe just after the bell rang, which would signal the end of lunch.

But the redheaded boy just smirked. Just smirked, the corner of his mouth kinking upwards in a really irksome way. She wanted to wipe it off of his face before she left, but-

The doors burst wide open as seventy-five percent of the school's female attendants poured onto the school rooftop. "AISHA GREIMYST!"

"Oh my lord, oh my lord, oh my lord," she said beneath her breath before casting a quick sign of luck over her chest. Good luck on the rest of her school year, that was. Then she teleported away, still brimming with unspoken rage (and slight fear because of the girls) at her encounter with sassy little Elsword Sieghart.

She'd show him. Show him who was boss of this school, and who was going to listen to who. Maybe he'd even be her slave and do things for her, when she was too tired to uphold her responsibilities. And if he ever said anything about such obscenities, no one would believe him, because SHE was the school president and not HIM-

"Hello? Ms. Greimyst?" A small voice asked from behind her back. "Uh-uhm..."

The boy was the size of his voice. In fact...could he actually be shorter than her? She surveyed him up and down, careful in keeping her tone warm as she replied. Black mussed hair, cute little glasses propped on his nose (similar to hers, she thought), and soft black eyes. "Yep, what'd you need from me?"

"Would you please...uhm...accept this?" he asked shyly, sticking an awkward hand out that was holding an envelope. His dark bangs fell into his eyes and shadowed his expression, but she caught a glimpse of a furiously blushing face beneath. She took it curiously and stared at it.

"Your name is Alle-" Aisha looked up. "Hm?"

She took her purple-rimmed glasses off and wiped them with the sleeve of her golden-beige uniform before putting them back on. "Where'd Allegro go?" She raised an eyebrow and scanned around before spotting a distant black-clad figure. "How'd he get away so fast?" The school president glanced back down at the envelope.  
><em><br>To: Miss Aisha Greimyst_

_From: Allegro Darkrin_

Opening it with caution, she skimmed through the contents (which were full of sweet compliments) before skidding to a complete stop at the bottom.

_Miss Aisha, will you go out with me?_

It was written with an obviously shaking hand, but she just stared at it. Even people like Allegro would just come up to her and ask her-...

Her eyes lit up with an evil gleam. Of course, of course. If this new and lazyass of a student wanted to play this game, she could too...

"Let the games begin, Sieghart!" she cried out to herself out of the blue, causing some passerby parents to give her strange glances. Certainly she would win at her own game, wouldn't she?

Or would she, eh?

Maybe the tortured cries and constant cursing from the boy above, still cornered on the rooftop, flooded by shrieking girls answered that for her.

Who knows, hm?~

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><p>"Why the hell would Stella make me do this?" he sighed, sitting in a corner, resting his chin on his knees. The janitor's mop was soaking up and drowning in the murky water in the gray steel bucket by the door. He had already been wiping the hallways for an hour, except he still had another half of all the halls in the school to go. Velder High was an extremely rich school known for it's high education in normal everyday subjects, rather than magic like Hamel Academy, which called for a huge place for the students to go to.<p>

He hoisted himself up and, stretching, reached out to push the doors open, having come upon the simple conclusion that he should just ditch and deal with Stella's rage tomorrow. Today was turning out to be way too longer than it should've originally been. Unfortunately for him, he heard footsteps from behind, rapidly reaching where he was, and Elsword flinched. He spun around and snatched the mop up with his sexy smile, one eye closed, and blurted, "I'm doing my job!"

"Oh, hi!" she said. "And who may you be?"

In front of him, where he thought might be either that demon-of-a-teacher Stella or even Aisha, was an elf with blonde hair that contained a light tint of green tied up into a pony tail. Her bangs were slipped to the right and clipped with what seemed like a moonflower. She was wearing an airy light green dress that flowed to her thighs and had detached sleeves that were pinned with golden at the arm. Dark golden eyes looked down at him from above her chest, in which the second he spotted he looked down with a slightly red face. She had obsidian black boots on, he noted, with the same curious moonflowers on them.

His eyes accidentally wandered back up to see the bulge in the fabric covering her chest, his face reddening to the point where it felt like it was flaming. Elsword covered his nose just in case his nose couldn't hold on.

"You know..." The elf said, closing her eyes as he felt a fear-inducing aura float up from around her. One of her veins twitched. "My eyes are up **_HERE_**-" Pointing to them, "-and not **_THERE_**." She crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. "Learn to make eye contact and not just stare at their breasts all day long."

"I'm sorry," he mumbled politely, suddenly afraid of her. She could probably break his legs in one swift kick.

"So! Name?" Her happy smile returned, brighter than ever.

"Elsword Sieghart," he replied, starting to get back to work on mopping the floor up. Damn, he really needed clean water on this. Just how much dirt and dust could these hallways collect on the first day of school?

"You know," she started again, but stopped and gave a light laugh when he stiffened at those words. "I'm sorry, I know I can be scary sometimes! But-wait, let me introduce myself first. My name is Rena Vemerant, vice president of the school!"

"VP, huh?" he said. "That means that you know who the president is, right?"  
>Rena nodded, one hand on her hip. "Of course. Aisha deserves that position more than I do, actually."<p>

"How well do you know her?" he asked, pretending to be hard at work scrubbing some invisible stain on the shiny floors. However, a plan was already forming in his mind, and his smile crept back into his features.

"Hmm," he heard the elf as she thought. "I know her well enough, is what I can say."

"What's she scared of?" Elsword asked as casually as he could. The invisible stain was apparently still there as he continued to scrub futilely at nothing.  
>Rena shot him a suspicious glance but answered - which would later be her most grave mistake she had ever made in the history of her school life.<p>

"Well... One, she hates spiders with her life. The second thing is that if her glasses were to be taken off, she wouldn't be able to see a thing. Why would you ask that?"

His smile widened into a grin.

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><p><strong>So how did you all like that? ^_^ I really love RS x EM, it's just one of the pairings that actually make some legit sense! OAO The first chapter may be meh-y and things are not very realistic, but I imagine Elsword and all of it's fanfictions in an anime-styled life and portrait. But I promise, things like fluff and perhaps some more hilarity will pick up! :D And more characters as well. And as always,<strong>

**Thank you for reading!**


	2. Oh Shit

**Chapter 2**

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><p>The morning was extremely peaceful and quiet as the students piled in into the second day of school. Although no homework had been assigned and there was absolutely no reason to stay up late, most of them had been awake till 2 doing whatever they were doing.<p>

But the stillness was broken like a dream as quite an earsplitting voice (in his opinion) rang into the early misty air. "Elsword! I challenge you and your fangirls!"

He sighed tiredly as he turned around to face her. "To what, flat brat?"  
>She smiled widely. "To a popularity contest, of course!"<p>

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><p>Aisha smirked and flashed a stunning smile to all of the crowding boys beneath her. She was dressed up in something even worse than Rena's outfit for her last year, but it would be so worth it if she could just erase the permanent laziness scrawled across his face. Last year she had been stuck into a singer-styled dress with frills and ribbons but...<p>

The white hem of the dress flowed down to her knees. The entirety of the dress was black, while in the midsection there was a patch of white crossed also in black strings. Strips of lace were used to make a cuff for the dress's widening sleeves, and adorning her hair was a lacy headband of gray. The only color that popped out in her entire outfit today was the purple in her hair, which she drill-style curled into her usual low pigtails.

She was dressed as a maid.

"Welcome back, master!" she called out. Giving a small wave, her eyes darted over to the side, where on the opposite side of the stage, Elsword was letting a rune dance along his fingers. And of course, his signature smile, that won a cacophony of squeals. The boys in front of her heard the moral support that the redhead was receiving and caused a rippling, deafening roar to overwhelm them. The females glared hotly back before screeching at the top of their lungs. The competition of who was louder was beginning to hurt her ears, so Aisha curtsied to catch her fans' attention. "Uhm, I'm sorry, my master, but your maid has something to ask of you..." She winked and watched with a hint of amusement as several boys stumbled into the bathrooms with hands to their noses. "I just need you to find all of your friends and bring them here! Whoever brings the most and helps me beat Elsword Sieghart, my rival in this contest, will receive a date with me and a kiss to the cheek!" She put emphasis on that word. There was never enough emphasis on words to keep these boys at bay.

The moment the words left her mouth, all of them stampeded out the doors to the gym, leaving nothing but dust behind.

Elsword didn't miss a beat. "You too, girls!~ The one who brings the most will receive a NIGHT with me!"

And so they were gone too. The boy crumbled to the floor, letting his breath out with obvious relief. Aisha took this sign as a boost to her confidence and strolled over. "Well well, Elsword. You're going to lose, don't you know that?"  
>He snorted. "Uh-huh. We'll see about that. And what's with the get-up?" He eyed her French maid outfit with some sort of emotion, but his expression was equally unreadable.<p>

"To be honest," she grumbled, "I hate it. But anything to cause you torture," she added snappily. "Maybe I should just let you win so you can spend a nighttime of hearing that girl whisper sweet nothings into your ear!" His face blanched. She grinned innocently and began to walk off the stage. Being a school president set so much pressure on her fragile shoulders, but it was definitely worth it to put these kinds of people into their rightful place!

He recovered just in time for her to hear his retort. "At least they'd be better looking and have a sexier body than yours~ I'd rather eat grass than have a body like yours sleeping next to mine!"

She spun furiously on her flats with lightning crackling around her. "Stop thinking about my breasts, you pervert! What do those fangirls see in you anyways?"

"Same goes for you, huh?"

She made a small movement, and in the next second, her face was right next to his. Her staff was pressed threateningly to his face. Aisha swung her arm to whack him hard in the noggin (he honestly needed it) but he dodged swiftly and threw her off balance with her own weight. As her face rushed towards the wooden ground of the stage, she felt a pair of arms wrap around her waist and hoist her back onto her feet. She found herself facing a black-vested chest just as the crowd of boys streamed back into the gym.

_Oh my lord,_ she thought.

The effect that the current misunderstanding scene that was unfolding in their eyes right now brought flames to the lights of their eyes. To see that their female idol was being touched with the filthy hands of another male other than them was enough to anger and fuel their spirit.

"Don't touch the president!" someone shouted over the rising din.

"She WILL be ours!" another insisted.

"Oh shit," Elsword said.

"Oh shit," she echoed.

"OUR ELSWORD!" Girls shrieking came piling in from the other door, all running for the male of their dreams. "KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OF HIM, YOU SLUT!"

"Oh shit," he repeated.

"Wait, that's right," she said. "Get your hands off of me!"

"I don't even get a thank you?" he protested as she shoved him away.

"Not right now!" She took his hand without second thought and teleported away to another exit. Anywhere but these sexually-driven fans.

It lead down to the lockers, tall, gray pieces of steel assembled to let students put their belongings into the gaping space created. Each had a lock on them, white numbers ranging from zero to forty five carved into the blackness. There was a knob in the middle for them to twist the right combination in.

According to Elsword's ears, though, the number of footsteps was suddenly ranging from two to over a hundred pattering on the floor. Thankfully enough, they turned a corner, keeping out of sight.

He only just realized that Aisha's hand was in his. Hers felt small and soft in comparison to his bigger and rougher ones covered in gauntlets. He tore his hand away from hers and ran ahead.

The row of lockers seemed endless, all the same color. But as they heard the crowd rushing closer than ever, both of their eyes locked onto one of them.

The door was hanging open on it's hinges. Someone's locker was left carelessly open, and they were going to pay for it. Although Aisha's goody-goody conscience went against it, she dived into the locker with almost no self-conflict. A second later, Elsword followed her in and pulled the locker closed, hearing the lock click into place. Both of them, squished and huddled into the small area, prayed and held their breaths.

The locker vibrated violently as the students rushed past them, all shouting something incoherent about their idols. Elsword was as stiff as a tree as he waited for them to pass by without notice.

The rumbling was left behind, and only silence was left.

Aisha shifted, loosening up. She was curled at the bottom in a fetal position, near his feet. He was pressed to the side of the cold metal, shivering as the bare skin of his uncovered arms kissed the smooth, freezing surface. Since the lockers were assigned only yesterday, there was close to nothing inside of it.  
>The silence, as always, never lasted long. "You're fat," she mumbled, trying to find space in the pitch-black darkness. She ended up sitting on his toes.<p>

"Ow," he whispered. Her weight was set onto only one of his feet, causing quite a bit of pressure on it. "It's not fat. They're muscles!"

"Wait until we do weight training," she whispered. "We'll see then who's fat."

"Obviously you," he retaliated, smirking even when no one could see him.

"Seriously, you're taking up so much spa-" A thought suddenly crossed her mind and she gasped. "Lockers don't open from the inside. How in Salvatore are we going to get out?!"

The silence came back to haunt them as no answer was given to her. Only the sounds of their breathing could be heard. "The person who-"

"Shh!" he said, leaning down to cover her mouth with his hand. He banged his head against the locker in the process and winced, which completely defeated his original purpose of being subtle. Footsteps were getting increasingly louder, and he bit his lip. They were most definitely screwed. There was no way they were going to get out of this. It was probably Ariel, the principle of the school, who was coming with a set of keys to open the locker up and have the two of them tumble out. At least Aisha would be punished in the long hours of endlessly scrubbing the already-clean hallways with him, breaking their backs and aging into old people and still scrubbing for the eternity that Stella would assign-

The lock turned. They could hear the combination of it spin one way, then the other. They heard it click open and the locker swing out as sunlight graced their sight again.

The student in front of them was dressed in punk-styled clothes, mostly black and dark purple. Sharp objects dangled from chains surrounding his waist, black gloves covering his hands. His untamed hair was shockingly white and his eyes were a malicious magenta. He gave them an incredibly long stare, as they were both in very strange positions within his locker. Add opened his mouth and closed it.

Aisha's glasses slipped off of the bridge of her nose and clattered onto the ground.

Then he snarled, "If you want to make out, then don't do it in my locker!"

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><p><strong>And that's that! :D I hope you all enjoyed this chapter as well! Thank you all so much for the reviews and your support! ^^ I'll try and upload chapters at LEAST once a week. Once again, thank you for taking your time in stopping by and checking this out!<strong>


	3. Maybe Swing My Heart too?

**Chapter 3**

**ALSO ALSO ALSO SORRY SO MUCH FOR THE RANDOM CHAPTER 1 TURNING INTO CHAPTER 3! T_T Now enjoy!**

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><p>Principal Ariel had condemned the two of them to an entire week of detention, which infuriated Aisha to no ends. Well, she supposed it was partially her fault...wait, no, never mind. It was <em>entirely<em> her fault. No use in trying to lie to herself and shove the blame onto Elsword just to make herself feel better.

It was already the third morning of detention, of having to wake up at six thirty AM when the sun hadn't even smiled upon the world yet just to sit in Helen's class for half an hour. Doing absolutely nothing at all except staring at the clock and watching as the hands ticked ever so sluggishly.

Elsword was sitting in the desk next to hers, his elbow propped up against the surface. His chin was on the palm of his hand, and he dozed off, breathing slowly but not snoring. How did Helen not notice?! She whipped her head around to see what the teacher was doing. Helen was too focused on sewing a piece of black fabric with neon green, intent to the point where she didn't even see her supposed "student in detention" sleeping the minutes away.

Aisha huffed. Not like she could really complain. It would just make her seem like a tattletale. She leaned over the side of her chair and, while keeping an eye on the sewing teacher, she flicked Elsword on the side of his ear. He started, his eyes blasting wide open as a silent sound of shock formed on his lips. "Don't sleep while you're in detention," she whispered.

"You're too strict." He yawned, using the back of his wrist to cover it. "By the way. I have a question."

"I don't even want to hear it." She faced the other way so she wouldn't have to look at him. The sky outside sure was cloudy today, casting sad shadows and barely any light on the anticipant land below.

"Do you even wear a bra?" Those words just slipped out so easily, so casually, as if he wasn't talking about bras but homework instead. Even his face was mild, like he had asked this question to a bunch of girls before.

The brown gloves she had on her hands started smoking as they shook in fury. "Do you have a death wish or what?!"

_Now_ Helen glanced up and saw the fight arising between the two loud students. "Excuse me? I believe this is detention." Her black pupils pierced the two of them to the soul. Despite her reputation of being the kindest teacher out of the whole school, she was also the most rule-stiff one. "Tomorrow I would like you two to come in and sit for forty-five minutes in complete silence. If you utter a single word, I will be forced to give you an hour-long detention." She smiled gently. Of course, since she always came early in the day to do work. Of course she wouldn't mind torturing the two of them some more.

"Yes, Ms. Helen," the two of them replied sheepishly at the same time. Then Aisha stood up and moved to the very back of the classroom, as far away as she could get from the Rune Slayer.

"What a perverted bastard," she muttered to herself.

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><p>It seemed that today was hell bent on making Aisha Greimyst suffer. Not only did every third girl she passed by give her sharp glares, but it was now almost the entire P.E. period that was leering at her.<p>

And P.E. unit?

Dance.

To be exact, **partner** dancing.

They were gathered in the middle of the gym while Camilla, the instructor, counted them up on roll. "Okay, it seems that everyone's here today!" She flashed an innocent smile, as if she weren't aware at all of the tortures that the school president was living through right now. "So, since I never was a patient one, let's get right into this unit! Dance will last for about three weeks-" At this, Aisha mentally crumpled to the floor and sobbed her heart out. "-and we will do it rotation style. Meaning, every female in this class will have to dance with every male at least once!"

The eyes of the fangirls, at those words, darted over to Elsword, who was nonchalantly leaning against a wall. "The first dance we'll be learning and practicing this week will be the Swing. It's a dance that's often shown in Bethma, as it originated there. Now, all of the boys split into two lines and stand at the farthest end of the gym." The males obeyed her and shuffled to each side in single file lines. "Now all of the girls go to a random boy and line up exactly as they did, except facing them. No boy or girl should be partnerless. Go!"

It wasn't surprising that all hell broke loose and the Demon King himself came ascending from the depths to greet them. Girls gravitated to Elsword whereas most of the boys were attracted to Aisha. "A-Ah, boys, I'll dance with you sooner or later! Don't... Just go pick a random partner! Your school president directs that you all obey Camilla!"

Thank goodness they listened to her. But the instructor was already at work, pulling everyone's clumping apart and planting them firmly with partners. "I will never do that again with this class," Elsword heard the teacher mumble as she strode past him.

He assessed the girl standing in front of him. Long strands of silver hair, emotionless eyes set into an emotionless face, delicately pale hands, and slim body.

"Incompetent fool," she said, stepping closer to him while her amber pupils flashed. "Do not think you can avert your eyes and say that you had not been looking at me. I am not so filled with stupidity as to glance at your hideous face and conclude that I am what they always call 'love at first sight.' What a completely preposterous lie." And with that out of the way, she backhanded him across the face, leading to several loud gasps to echo into the strangely quiet gym room. "Not every organism has knelt in front of you yet, Rune Slayer. Err again, and I shall give you the proper punishment."

"Crap," he said, prodding his cheek. Just another crazy girl to be in the same class as he was. "Name?"

"Eve, Queen of Nasods. Hands out." He did as he was told (for he treasured the other side of his face too.) And with that, she placed her gloved hands into his.

Camilla grinned, showing off her almost-canine-like teeth. "Indeed that is, and our Eve makes the move again! Everyone, step up and closer to your partners and hold hands!"

Aisha was satisfied with her partner. She knew him. He was completely sane. "Good afternoon, Raven," she greeted.

He gave a very small smile, just the corner of his lips curving upwards nice and gently, and said in his smooth, deep voice, "Good afternoon." She was more than happy to place her hands into his.

"Alright, everyone ready?" Camilla called out. Everyone gave their rumbling assent. "First part of the Swing is to take a step to the side together. Males, step to the left, and girls, move to the right. Now step back into your original positions with the same movements, just the opposite." Aisha stumbled through her words, accidentally going to her left rather than her right. But Raven held her down and lead her to where she was supposed to go. _I'm such a bad dancer._ Embarrassment flooded her features as she kept her head down and stared at their shoes. Hers were coffee, his were obsidian black. Just like his hair.

They repeated those two simple steps for another thirty seconds or so before Camilla started dishing out orders again. "At the end of the second step, take the heel of your foot and put your weight on it. Then, while still holding hands, lean backwards into a rock and pull back in. Repeat this for a minute." And again, the purple-haired girl messed up halfway because her mind couldn't comprehend the amount of mistakes she was performing. And yet again, Raven was good enough to lead her back into the rhythm. _Thank god._

Whether it was a gift or a curse that this class learned relatively fast in dance, they were already finished with the Swing and just practicing it to waste the rest of their time that the period held. Their rotations went pretty much smooth as a placid river could be. Even Aisha, who already labeled herself as the worst dancer Elrios could harness was doing well.

But of course, peace and calmness never lasted forever. There was always something that bound to break it, a shattering of glass, a slip of night in between the blazing sunset, a racket arising within a quiet melody.

In this case, it was Aisha's sense of balance.

Almost quite everything physically related to the mage was low. Stamina was absolutely wretched. Her speed was drab in comparison to the athletes. Even right now, a simple dance, she was slightly out of breath and her muscles started to burn.

As her partner - it was a boy with long, long locks of dusty golden hair and two curious chocolate-colored tips, Chung - spun her on her heels to perform the turn, her hand that was clasped in his twisted the wrong direction. This resulted in her feet also turning in the wrong way, and she ended up falling sideways and crashing into her neighbor. Unfortunately, even as Chung tried his best to hold onto her, she fell.

And, unfortunately, her neighbor just had to be Elsword.

"Holy crap," he muttered, both of them flat on their backs on the cold ground. Her cheeks were squished on the toned abs of his revealed torso, and she let herself rest like that for a second. She was dizzy, blood rushing to her head, and the ground felt like it was getting colder by the minute. And Elsword was strangely radiating a lot of heat, which was comfortable, which made her think that she was lying on a heater. A nice, good heater.

"Dude. Aisha. Up." He slowly pushed her head up, flicking it with his middle finger to snap her out of her daze. "Grapehead, get up. You don't have enough weight on your chest to have problems in getting yourself up."

"Ah!" She shoved herself off of him and stared at him for a long, long time. "Ah... Uh..."

He was brushing himself off, hands out for his current partner, which happened to be Rena, in which for no apparent reason Aisha found amusing-maybe because she was taller by an inch?-when she stood up abruptly and made herself bow. In reality, it was a stiff incline of her head, but a bow nonetheless to the arrogant boy. But she made herself do it, because it was her fault, and because she felt really sorry all of a sudden. "Sorry, Elsword!"

He raised an eyebrow at the elf in front of her. She smiled innocently. Elsword almost decided to ignore her, thinking it must've been the fall that hit her in the head to make her apologize for anything, but he made the mistake in looking at her face.

"Rotate!" Camilla called her, scribbling some notes on her clipboard.

Now a slightly-blushing Aisha (she was thinking about the moment when she was resting upon Elsword's stomach and found it comfortable) was holding hands with him. He was looking at her with a puzzled face (would he ever understand this chick?) and she was purposefully gazing past his shoulder to avoid his stare.

First step - she stumbled. Elsword huffed gently and pulled her through.

The rock step - she rocked back too far and nearly fell back again, and Elsword tugged her back into unstable balance. She resorted to looking down at their feet, as she had done with Raven.

Then she stepped on his foot.

"Oh," she said.

"Ow," he muttered, keeping his eyes on the wall past her shoulder.

"I didn't even step on you that hard," she said.

"Your fat ass sat on them too hard."

"Excuse me?!"

And suddenly, forgetting all about their awkward moment on the floor (and locker) together, they were back into arguing and pestering each other for the smallest of things.

"You're excused!"

"Do I seriously have to dance with a bastard like this?!"

"What are you talking about, I can't even stare at something de-ow!" Elsword shirked away from her as if he had been bitten. She had purposely stomped on his foot with all of her weight this time, resulting in what would probably be a huge bruise later. "Tch."

Aisha always had a little struggle with controlling her elemental summoning abilities. Last time, she was about to fry Elsword on the rooftop before he leaned over the edge to suggest that she was going to rape him. And now, a small fire danced across her finger and accidentally sparked onto Elsword's exposed skin, blistering it as he sucked his breath in with a hiss. And guilt washed over her again, waves and waves of it; her emotions were always too hot for her mental stability to hold onto her capabilities. And despite their constant bickering, he had not once ever hurt her. Or threatened to, for the matter.

"I-" she started.

"Camilla?" he called out, resting his other hand on the fresh burn. "May you excuse me to the nurse's office?"

* * *

><p>The nurse was, of course, expectedly hot. Elsword felt like flashing her a sly smile, just to see her reaction. But he held that in check, and was very relieved that he did so the minute after.<p>

Vanessa may have had the looks of the stereotypical nurse, but the thing was, she didn't have the _personality_ of one. He held his blistered arm out, and she barely looked at it with her clear blue eyes before she slapped an ice pack on it.

Hard.

Another bruise for him, it seemed. But he was more focused about the hovering presence behind him as he lounged on the chair. That flat girl seemed to be more concerned about the small burn than he was. Finally, unable to stand the silence, he turned around on his seat to face her. "Yo, Aisha. What's up?"

She gave him a mute glance. For the first time in a while, he was uncomfortable, fidgeting slightly. "Grapehead?"

"Yeah, uhm... Sorry... Because I can't-I mean-" She stumbled over her own words while mumbling in an almost-inaudible voice. "Well..." Her head was kept down, as if studying her shoes was the best thing she could do.

"Hm? I didn't catch what you said. Repeat it?" He grinned inwardly; oh, he had heard her alright. But hearing it again (for no one ever said sorry to the Rune Slayer so adorably before) would satisfy him.

"I-I said-I said sorry, okay?!"

And for some unknown reason, the smile that he had in mind for the sexy nurse was the one he gave her now. Except it wasn't flirtatious at all; instead, it was kind, warm, and genuine to Aisha. Her eyes widened.

"Don't say sorry for no reason. Cause, you know, you're pretty cute when you say that."

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><p><strong>And there's chapter 3! ^_^ I'll try and introduce more characters each chapter, but for now, Eve makes her common debut for slaps! And a certain someone will be dragged into Elsword and Aisha's mess the next chapter...~<strong>

**Oh, and I'd love a cookie, SmilingCookie :) Thanks for the offer!**

**Anyhow, thank you for all your support! I hope you enjoyed this so far!**


	4. Riches, Promises, and First Kisses

**Chapter 4**

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><p>And even after their week of detention with forty-five minute extended Helen, the vice principal decided to torture them further. He was a man (or was supposed to be) with dark purple hair swept to "seem" suave, blush dotting both cheeks on extremely palely-powdered skin, and a constant, carefree smile that finished it all. Richard, as most people in the school called him, was gay. Or homosexual, as Aisha liked to refer it.<p>

Richard was a unique vice principal, in the simple truth that he believed that love was the solution to almost every problem. One of the reasons that he became vice principal, in fact, was because he wanted to make lack of education solvable via love.

And so here Aisha and Elsword were, with the exact same crowd beneath them, both standing in the exact same spot on the stage they were on exactly one week ago.

In between them was a glass fishbowl sitting atop a tall, broken chair propped up with a few textbooks. Inside the bowl were hundreds of red tickets, each with a different name that was one of the students in front of them.

Yep. Richard was making them keep their carelessly thrown promises to the school.

* * *

><p><em>"I just need you to find all of your friends and bring them here! Whoever brings the most and helps me beat Elsword Sieghart, my rival in this contest, will receive a date with me and a kiss to the cheek!" She put emphasis on that word. There was never enough emphasis on words to keep these boys at bay.<em>

_The moment the words left her mouth, all of them stampeded out the doors to the gym, leaving nothing but dust behind._

_Elsword didn't miss a beat. "You too, girls!~ The one who brings the most will receive a NIGHT with me!"_

* * *

><p>Aisha eyed the fishbowl. "How about you first, Sieghart?"<p>

The corner of his mouth twitched. "No thank you, ladies first, right?"

She sighed and gave up. They would stand around here bickering the rest of the day away if she didn't get this done over with. Aisha cautiously slid her small hand into the bowl and mixed the tickets around, feeling the smooth paper run over her fingers like water. She felt a sense of foreboding and instantly snatched one up.

Praying within her heart, she cracked open an eye to see the slanted, cursive handwriting and she brightened. "Allegro Darkrin!" she called out triumphantly. _Now to see who Elsword gets to spend the night with_, she thought mischievously.

She heard Elsword swear lightly and stick his hand into the pile. Her eyes followed his fingers as he picked one up and read it aloud, confused if not hesitantly. "Chung...Seiker?"

The girls erupted into whispers and chatters. Aisha stifled a giggle that began to bubble up within her at the mention of the name. _It's Chung! My dance partner from last time. Who put his name in, though?_

Immediately, the track of her thoughts pointed towards a certain friend of hers. Rena, vice president of the school, strong supporter of homosexuals (and always believed that Chung was a girl deep down.)

She kept her mouth shut though as she watched Elsword try to process that name into his systems. She could almost hear him thinking, "Chung Seiker? Isn't that the prince of Hamel? Or, wait, is he a princess? And I have to spend a night with her?! ...is it a him? What?"

The crowd seemed to regurgitate the prince, shoving him forward like a river giving up one of it's stones. And, to her surprise, Aisha noticed that all the females were not in the slight bit jealous, rather, boiling over with excitement that it might be... She heard the word "yaoi" pass over several times as Chung stood stiffly in front of Elsword, meeting his ruby eyes with cerulean ones. They both had a staring contest, and the gym held it's breath. Then, Elsword lifted his chin up with a single finger, tilting his head so he was looking up at him. She saw the faint glint of recognition light up in his irises and knew that he finally figured out Chung's gender. Which was good for him, she supposed, but she was disappointed in the fact that he didn't get a slutty girl like Chloe to sleep with.

But then again, he got to sleep with a guy, right? (She sincerely hoped the rumors would do their job.) And all she needed to do was to go out with a boy that she was actually acceptable with.

Simple, right?

* * *

><p>The night after the raffle selection, Aisha was casually fitted into a normal-looking dress (she didn't want anything too expensive or fancy for a friendly date). It consisted of lavender frills accentuated with layers of white underneath. Detached sleeves of a darker shade of purple that matched her hair was held in place with brown leather and gold buckles at the base. The dress's hem flowed down to about the middle of her thighs - quite short, but not so much that it'd make her flirty, showy, or uncomfortable.<p>

Allegro was waiting for her at the entrance of a restaurant that fragrantly smelled of Hamelian foods and spices. A small smile picked it's way to her mouth. What a sense of flavor that he had in first-time dates, taking a girl out to eat Hamelian dinner!

She felt like she was the host of a show that was rating on the decisions of each nervous boy or man that got onto camera for their first date choices. But it was just a habit she had picked up, nothing big.

On one side of the town of Velder, a prestigious mage was having a delicious dinner with an anticipant, constantly-blushing boy that she only had friendly, acquainting feelings for; on the other side of the town, however, a room within an apartment was dark. Elsword shifted every other second or so, trying to find space on his bed. He hadn't exactly wanted to sleep on the floor, he only had one bed in his small apartment room, and he didn't want to force the prince to take his place on the carpet either.

But he hadn't expected the long-haired boy to take up so much space on his one-man bed. He was practically squished to the wall, nearly kissing it, as he listened to Chung's slow, breathing noises and turned raging thoughts over in his head. Damn it, maybe he shouldn't have taken such crazy bets. And neither should he have been actually doing this, although he wouldn't be surprised if he had a few stalkers that had followed him and Chung home.

Elsword, unable to take the wall's unforgiving embrace for much longer, twisted his body and turned to face the other way. He came nose-to-nose with the prince of Hamel and almost gave a yelp.

He knew he was a guy. That was for sure. But no matter how you looked at him, even in close inspection, he just got more and more feminine. Pale skin, slightly-blushed cheeks, soft lips, silky, smooth hair that flowed past the waist...

Oh, what was he thinking?

But back to the other end of the town. Aisha and Allegro had finished their dinner in a timely manner, and she was delighted to see him hold his hand out for hers to take as they exited. Such was the manners of that one man she wanted to meet in the future, the one she would fall in love with. Yes, she decidedly thought as Allegro took her outside back into the frigidly cold air, the man that I would fall in love with must be handsome. He must be rich. He must be polite to me and treat me nicely, and not as a replacement for something else. He'd have to be a shining prince and save me whenever I was in a dilemma.

That would be the man I would want to marry, she decidedly agreed with herself.

(She, at this very early point, didn't know just how wrong she was and how little she knew about her heart. But no one could blame her, ne? But, indeed, he was handsome. That was the only one she was right about.)

"And, as I promised," she spoke as they neared the taxi that her date had gotten, "you can have your kiss to the cheek." Although quite unwilling to do it, yet not quite minding it, she stooped down (he was shorter than her) and gave a small peck to the cheek. Just a brushing of her lips on the side of his face. She waved at him as he clambered into the taxi, stuttering incomprehensible phrases, his whole head turning into a bright red strawberry.

When she was sure he left and was out of sight, she turned to the parking lot and headed to her own car. A chauffeur was standing outside of the sleek, black doors, bowing when he saw her. "Milady," he began.

"It's fine, no need," she crisply cut him off. "Please drive me home."

And as her thoughts swam back to what her future prince would look like (she was much more of a girl than she gave off), they wandered in the direction of her arch rival at school. Elsword didn't seem to dress like he was rich, more like he was scandalous...

Well. It wasn't like _she _dressed like she was rich either.

_Polite and nice to me? Save me in a dilemma? _**Handsome? **her mind sputtered.

Yep, she concluded. Elsword Sieghart was the exact opposite of what she liked about the other gender. No wonder she hated him.

But somewhere, also ticking off in the back of her head like a clock, some of the nicer things and words he said were held under key and lock.

As Aisha's little date ended in a quick couple of hours, Elsword, on the other hand, was getting more and more uncomfortable. There was absolutely no way he could sleep with a royal stranger in his bed. He was facing the wall again, unable to bear the innocent-looking face on the other side. He had never prepared himself for two people on his bed, and was awkward and irritated at the same time. In only a pair of boxers and nothing else, he found the wall relentless in it's cold-hearted chill. Elsword _could've_ stuffed part of his blanket in between him and the wall, but he was afraid of waking Chung up with him yanking the blanket roughly. He began talking to the slab of painted wood for some reason, about the purple-haired prat, the prince next to him, and the fact that the wall was too hard.

Then he looked around at his cramped apartment and the prince next to him and sighed. Were all people at Velder High rich? That couldn't be. But if they were... Then that must've meant that Aisha Greimyst also had pockets full and stuffed with overflowing ED?!

He banished the thought from his head. People that had that much money on their hands would be dressed properly. Not with overgrown, hanging bangs, drab appearance, not even a sense of rhythm in dancing! (How "dressing properly" turned into dancing with rhythm was impossible to know.)

Unbeknownst to them, they were thinking about each other on a very similar topic. Both, however, also put it in the perspective that each hated each other to the point they might as well have cut each other's hair bald and burnt each other's clothes off. Or maybe they were just lying to themselves, but were both too dimwitted to notice the tricks their own mind was playing on them.

Still.

He found the wall no good company.

Sighing, he flipped his body around again, rather having the wall to his back than have it in his face. He was about to scoot closer to Chung for huddled warmth when, instead, he accidentally bumped into the blonde-haired boy.

Not on the head, or the legs, or the arm, body, no no, not any of that, but-

**-it just had to be on the lips.**

Immediately, forgetting all about the prospect of not waking him up, Elsword shot up on his bed and scrambled off. Over and over in his head, like a recording that someone annoyingly taped and replayed, his mind whispered to him, _Your first kiss~ Your first kiss~ Stolen by a cute sleeping prince, who happened to be in your bed~ Where have we heard of that before? _He shook his head rapidly from side to side, his crimson hair fluffing and messing up in the process. His heart went fluttering about in his chest like a butterfly, not because he just found out he was not very attracted to girls (he was very attracted to them) but because it was overall too shocking for anything but his heart to comprehend.

For the rest of the night, with no complaints whatsoever, he slept on the stiff floor, cheek to his arm.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry for the short chapter! DX I've been busy lately (there are tons of school projects coming up, tests, etc.) and I could only afford this measly wall of text. QwQ I'm actually a really bad fluff writer and I started writing this in high hopes of improving it. Nonetheless, hope y'all liked it! x3 And consistent thanks for all your continual support! <strong>


	5. A Little Bit of Research and Glasses

**WARNING: This story contains no yaoi whatsoever, even despite the last chapter. Just wanted Elsword to make a new friend or two, and not an unwanted girl in his bed 3**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 5<strong>

* * *

><p>"Quite the literature project that we have been assigned," a gentle yet steely voice remarked. "Although it would be nothing for me to finish. But being grouped together with such incompetent fools..."<p>

"Who're you calling incompetent," Aisha muttered, glaring at the paper in front of them, filled with walls of text about how their project would go.

"So," Elsword, on the other side of Eve, said, "we're...supposed to...?"

"Read," Eve snapped.

"'._..complete a board presentation on the Elven language..._'" he read aloud, his expression clouding by the second. "Wait, wait, wait. Board presentation? You mean like the ones we did for the alchemy last year?"

"Correct," the long, silver-haired, fair-skinned Nasod affirmed. "In order to achieve the highest grade we can possibly get on such a project, I require that we fill it up to the point where we cannot fit any more on it."

"'_First, a paragraph briefly explaining the types of elven languages, then the history of why they split up into several branches in another,_'" Elsword continued. "'_Pronunciations and basic marks, symbols, and strokes will be the basic covering. Deeper in-depth explanations would be the reason of the symbols and the interpretation of different ones by their appearance. Extra credit will be given to those who include the items that they write with and what it is, where to get it, etc_.'"

"We are also doing the extra credit," she added, throwing them a pointed look.  
>The boy groaned internally; he thought that being grouped up with the smartest of the class would be easy on him. He was just that lazy, willing to be with others that would just do the work for him. But of course neither Aisha nor Eve would allow to take such treatment from him, and so he was forced to at least put effort into the project.<p>

The three of them sat in silence, staring thoughtfully at the paper and thinking as the Languages class they were in bustled around busily.

"Let us meet in one of the Feita Libraries tomorrow," Eve said, her eyes still unfocused as they saw something in the near future. Elsword speculated with a child-like, glum mood that it was probably what their board presentation was going to be soon. Neat, prim, filled up with small, printed letters in bold, black ink - it would be boring but most satisfying for a teacher.

Almost unbearably boring, Elsword was thinking. Maybe he should ditch this.  
>If only he could.<p>

"Which of the libraries?" Aisha suddenly piped up, as if waking from a dream.

He decided that he could at least pretend he was trying. "Garden, maybe?"

"Garden it is, then," the Nasod Queen said before the bell dismissed them home.

* * *

><p>He was lingering around one of the study tables at the far back of the Feita - Garden library for about half an hour already. Aisha had already dropped her bag and had begun to search through the vast category for elven languages.<p>

The Garden library, although none would guess, was Elsword's favorite. Sometimes he just sat on a bench inside of the library and read the day away. Exotic trees and flowers had grown everywhere inside of the building. It wasn't called Garden by random; everything was covered with a lush, verdant green.

As of the moment, he was waiting for their third partner's arrival, fingering the edge of a fern. He began to rub his thumb along it in a rhythmic motion. Not many people came to the Garden on Saturday afternoons. The sun had to struggle to give them light, as the canopy was so thick that it could barely filter through.

Then, shocking him out of his hypnosis, his phone buzzed in the pocket of his black jeans. He took it out. _A text from Eve?_

"Hey, Elsword." Aisha had called his name out softly from across the hall, carrying a large stack of old books. He went up to her and, out of old habit and (maybe, although she doubted it) kindness, took the weight off of her arms and set them on the table.

"What were you lounging around for?" she asked in a slightly irritated voice.

"Waiting for Eve," he replied. "I just got a text from her." And so he flipped his phone open and read what she had sent.

**_'It appears that I simply cannot attend today. You must follow along with the schedule as planned without me. I have other matters to avert my attention to. You will complete the research today, correct? If not, I will allow my hands to graciously whip themselves across your cheek once more.'_**

She just left it at that. The two of them just stared at the screen, rereading the message that she had sent over and over and over. Then he snapped his phone shut.

"Don't tell me she set us up," he growled.

"..." Aisha just turned her back to him, furiously thinking thoughts about the lazy boy behind her. Those thoughts soon turned into insults, and those insults soon turned into steam that she just quietly blew away. She had already settled down in the chair across from the redhead and opened a book to scan the contents.  
>She heard (and smiled unnoticeably) Elsword take a book from the pile that she had accumulated and began to read too. Aisha brushed stray hair away from her vision behind her ear and adjusted her glasses as her hands scooted the pencil across the paper, taking notes as she skimmed.<p>

Then the purple-haired mage glanced up to see him wearing a pair of black-framed glasses. She could barely stop the "Ehh?!" come out of her mouth, but let out a soft, "Ah!"

His blood red eyes went from the book in front of him to the girl who was looking genuinely surprised. What was she staring at?

It slowly came to him. His glasses. "I don't really need them," he said casually, answering her unasked question. "I just use them sometimes."

"Reading glasses?"

"Something like that."

Was it really that strange? he thought. He didn't realize that Aisha was trying to deny the fact that he seemed more sophisticated and-how to put it-more _handsome_ with them on.

"You know," she said after a little bit more of precious silence and studying, "I'm glad you're at least trying. I thought you were just going to be a lazy fatass for the rest of the day."

He let a smirk play across his face. "I'm not one of the top students in the high school for nothing."

"Yeah, but..." She sighed. "I guess you putting a little effort into this project still doesn't change the fact that you're as hopeless as ever."

"Nope," he said, smirk turning into another one of his countless grins.

Another few minutes or so of scribbling notes, adjusting glasses, and flipping through huge, leather-bound books written by elves when one of them spoke again. "Hey, what do you think we should cover on the project out of all these languages?"

"Aethaëlr, Tumørteü, and Gęnawltivæs?" The words seem to roll off of Aisha's tongue, but Elsword was obviously struggling with how to say them.

"Yeah, Ay...Aytha...Aythairalablyeh," he finished lamely. "And the rest."

She stifled a laugh (but he caught it nonetheless) and shifted her chair to get a better view of the book he had open. Their shoulders came into contact, but neither of them noticed nor minded. Both were too focused on the project to really sense the point of conjoined warmth. "It's Ay-thai-lay-urr, Too-muor-teh-oh, and Jay-nah-lit-tivee-oos." She snatched her pencil from the other side of the table where she had originally been sitting and wrote those down for him. "Don't screw that up during the presentation, got it?"

"Damn it," he grumbled, giving the words a sad, almost puppy-eyed gaze. "I can't pronounce that shit."

"Eve can help," she snickered. "Her hand can too."

"Shut up," he said, mind currently flooding to the brim with ideas. It was rare that he got into such a state of concentration for anything school-related, but this counted for almost two whole letter grades, so he had to be focused. "How about we..."

* * *

><p>A couple of hours later, when Elsword returned to the study table with two drinks in hand for them, he found something unexpected. Aisha had apparently fallen asleep, the side of her face pressed against the yellowing pages of the book she had been reading. She seemed almost cute and not evil if he hadn't actually known, with her purple hair framing her cheeks and her glasses half-on. (The expression she was making accidentally reminded him of Chung. His face flushed bright red before he toned it down.)<p>

Curious, he stooped down to level of her face and decided to take advantage of the current situation she put herself in. Aware of what might happen if those eyelids fluttered and those amethyst orbs saw him, he inched his hand carefully to her face.

He began to slide her glasses off, cautiously, and let them free of her locks of hair. Somewhere inside of him, he resisted the urge to brush aside the bangs that covered her face and keep watching. But that was only a small instinct, one that was still growing roots and budding, not quite yet blooming, so he just gave the top of her head a light ruffle, feeling the softness of her hair beneath his hand. Elsword, having gained what he needed (her glasses in short), started to clean up and put their resources back into their correct bookshelves. As he was packing his backpack up, he heard her say something in her sleep, albeit not quite clearly.

"Hah?" he said, leaning in closer to catch on to what she was mumbling about. But she had gone back to breathing. "'Not too bad?' What the hell're you dreaming about, Aisha?"

With that, he left the defenseless girl in the library, taking her glasses with him. (And she would wake up later stumbling around half-blind, trying to find her way out.) Upon such mention, he took them out of his pockets and slid his own off before fitting them on.

"Crap," he said to no one in particular as he walked home with purple frames on his eyes, "your eyesight is so bad I can't even see shit."

* * *

><p>And, to say in the eyes of passerby, there was actually a silver-haired, elegantly-dressed girl sitting on the opposite end of the library, sorting files and inputting the info from paper to screen through keyboard. It just happened so that one of her friends that she had respect (and slight annoyance at times) for had given her a call that day. Maybe that friend's name started with an R, perhaps not, but she requested that the Nasod Queen left the two of them be alone at this library. At first, she had objected, but eventually went along with whatever she was cooking up.<p>

And so, in truth, all three of them were at the library, but only one of them knew that they were all there.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry I'm not too good of a fluff writer DX I tried my best! They needed a little bit of study time, and Eve got pulled out due to a certain elf XD Is Aisha really that oblivious? Maybe, maybe not~ ono Anyhow, thank you all for your continuous support!<strong>


	6. Silver Snowflake

**Chapter 6**

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><p>"Geez, just hand them over already!"<p>

"Not until you do something for me first," he said in a mocking tone.

The two of them had been fighting for her pair of glasses (which was hovering over the trash can as of the moment) for around fifteen minutes now. Both had come a little early in the morning to the Languages classroom to share the information they had gathered in the library with Eve. As of now, Eve was nowhere to be seen, most likely somewhere else dealing with her own problems. It was rare that she was late, but it couldn't be helped, and in all honesty, neither Elemental Master nor Rune Slayer were too worried about the Nasod queen.

"Like what?" she asked, finally giving in. It was something she wasn't used to doing, submitting in regretful defeat, but this boy that was dangling her glasses made her do it often enough that she almost always expected it to happen nowadays.

"Hmm..." He hadn't thought that she would give in this fast, and didn't have a plan formed in time. "Wait. One question."

_It's always the question_, she thought impatiently. "What is it?"

"You don't really need these, do you?" He gestured to her frames, flipping them to his other hand and holding them high over her head. Oh, how she was glad that they were alone in the classroom. No one other than him to see this humiliating scene, in which she was shorter than him and couldn't possibly reach for her glasses.

"What do you mean? Of course I need them, idiot."

"No, what I'm saying is that-I mean, you have contacts on, don't you?"

Now that surprised her. "Hah? You can tell?"

"Given the fact that your glasses are shit, I'm guessing that your eyesight is, too. And you're not bumping into everything you see, and you seem fine, so..." He gave a thoughtful shrug.

"Yeah, but I prefer glasses over contacts," she argued stubbornly. And she did. She actually hated contacts. She didn't know why, but just the feeling of them going over her eyes and having to blink erratically for a bit to adjust to the sight... Plus having to take them off and put them on again... Contacts were more of a nuisance than a help to her.

"Well..." He set her precious lifesavers on top of her head, letting them slide off and have her scramble to catch them. "Really though, I think you look better without them. Like you're not much of a geek anymore." And with that, just as she put them back on (despite contacts and all), he snatched them from her face and smirked slyly.

"You...you bastard...!"

"Have I truly come early in the morning only to stumble across a couple of idiotic lovers quarreling over something as simple as a pair of frames?" The door swung open, allowing the slender speaker to walk in. Eve gave a strand of silver hair a flick of her fingers, sending it back over her shoulder. She looked confident and full of royal air as always, in which most people took offense to. But the two of them didn't mind, only sighed simultaneously at the emotionless queen's choice of words.

"We are _not_ a couple of lovers," Aisha retorted. "Please. Him and I, a couple? Never. Not in a lifetime's worth, Eve."

Elsword said nothing, but his mouth curved downwards into a frown.

Eve swept her typed notes from thin air into view. "Shall we get started?"

* * *

><p>Their dancing unit was only about a third of the way through, leaving the students with approximately two weeks left. The Swing was already finished and mastered (or as close to mastered that Aisha could get to) and Camilla was already drilling in the Waltz into their heads. Everything was done in muffled, suffocating, wordless steps, where all of the students clung to each other in awkward shuffles.<p>

Chung smiled slightly at the sight of Aisha looking down at another boy's shoes, her face covered in an almost untraceable tint of pink. Then he focused on the girl in front of him, who was also as embarrassed as the violet-haired mage behind him. She had accidentally pulled on a lock of his hair that had caught in between their interlocked hands, and she whispered words of apology as her face grew an even brighter red. "Sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry Chung, that must've hurt," she mumbled.

"No, it's alright, I didn't really feel much at all," he replied, quite amused at her personality. She blew her black hair out of her face, and shifted her hands as if she wanted to brush it out of her face. But she caught onto Camilla's sharp look that was sent her way and ducked her head.

"Ara Haan, was it?" he continued, not noticing anything else besides the girl and the rhythm in their slow steps.

"Ah, uh-yes!" Now she looked as if she was about to apologize again, although Chung didn't notice. He saw many things, but sometimes the most crucial things he failed to see. Almost like every guy out there, yet kinder and harsher in that aspect. What he was focused on right now was that Ara Haan was a very good dancer, despite the occasional stutter in her words. He also thought that she was cute, like those modest, sweet girls, and smiled at his own thinking. What was he turning into, one of those boys that swooned over every girl that they had the eyes for?

The song ended, and the call for the rotation of partners rang out. "Let's dance again soon, Ara Haan!" he said cheerfully. "You're a very good dancer!"

"Thank you!" she said, going over to her next partner. She stopped halfway, and, after giving it some thought, turned around and gave him a quick bow. Then she spun on her heels and walked the rest of the distance to her partner.

Elsword, on the other hand, was not thinking that anyone was cute. In front of him was probably the most hideous creature he had ever seen in the entirety of his life, and worst off, she acted like she was flaunting her sexiness around or something. Like she KNEW she was beautiful and she wanted everyone to see it. But to be blunt, she was as ugly as a dark-skinned, loud-lipped, and slut-like elf could get.

"Hi, Elsword," she whispered breathily. Yep. That did not succeed in making her more attractive. If anything, it made her look even worse.

"Uh," he managed to strangle out. "Name?"

She batted her eyelashes (now he REALLY wanted to wrench his hands away from hers and go sit in the bathroom for an hour) and said, "Chloe."

"...Nice to meet you, Chloe," he said after a moment of watching her bat her eyelashes.

"Nice to meet me," she agreed heartily. "My, you're hotter than everyone actually says...~"

But at this point, his disgust was directed at something else. A guy, Lowe or some other shit, was obviously flirting with the grape-headed chick. And, as he expected, her face said that she didn't know that he was hitting on her.

He rolled his eyes when he heard the guy say, "You smell really nice, you know."

"I-I do?" she was asking in a bewildered voice. Chloe was yapping about his looks and handsomeness or whatnot in the background, but he wrenched his head over and said in loud, clear, words:

"Sorry, she might not be the straightest girl you want to be hitting on." Then he proceeded to mentally facepalm at his stupid reaction and decided to maybe pretend to pay attention to Chloe, in which the elf seemed delighted at. But he couldn't shake off a little of this feeling he had when he saw Lowe say things so close to her ear, just close enough to maybe bite it...

Aisha's mouth hung wide open with shock, and she could barely form anything for a while. A while that lasted all the way till the song ended, and even to when she rotated on to the next person, even to when Camilla played the same, droning, boring song again, even as she lifted her feet in a stone-like manner. And even when her mind processed the information that the gray-haired boy was giving her a strange glance, like she was a parasite he shouldn't have gotten close to.

Then she snapped back into her senses and let her rage flow freely like magma within her bloodstream. _That insensitive BRAT! He just suggests I'm not into males because some guy's making conversation with me?! Who the hell does that?! Holy crap, now all the girls are going to avoid me because they. Think. I'm. LESBIAN!_

And somewhere, lurking in her thoughts: _Just when I thought he was nicer, too_.

Then she stopped staring at those familiar-looking shoes and whipped her head up. "..."

"Yo," he said. "What's up?"

She tore her hands away from his and summoned her winged staff, then swung down with all her might, swirling with cobalt flames.

* * *

><p>"You might even lose your position as president now," Rena tentatively joked, sensing the deadly air surrounding the Elemental Master. "The school can repair that but-"<p>

"I know, Rena, I know," Aisha snapped, sounding very much like a grouchy old lady that had been told something more than once. "'But it'll cost a lot of money,' right?"

Really, though, the money didn't bother her. It should've. It really should've. But she wasn't living under the circumstances of normal people, so she was actually more concerned and flabbergasted that she had-

A snicker stopped her in her steps to the student council's room.

"What. Do. You. WANT, ELSWORD SIEGHART?!" She felt like banging her head on a desk for the rest of her life. How stupid she was, oh, how very _stupid_ she was.  
>Rena, with whatever agenda she had on mind, continued walking on without her. She had an urge to run after her and ditch this redhead.<p>

Then she saw his face morph from almost uncontrolled laughter, confidence, stoic, uncertainty, then just casual, with those eyes flicking to the side. "You didn't have to set fire to half of the gym, did you?"

Aisha was too infuriated to sense the change in the mood around them, even if she knew there was something unknowingly off about Elsword. "Yeah," she said. "And who's fault do you think it is? Huh?"

Maybe her voice was too harsh. Maybe her words were similar to one of Eve's slaps on his face. "Yeah, well, I-uh..."

She waited, because in reality, she had not expected this. She was taken aback.

_"...sorry," he said, very, very quietly. She hadn't even thought that the word "sorry" existed genuinely for the boy._

...or that's what she was hoping for. So maybe some of his image would return back to something in her eyes.

Instead, his face morphed into a grin and he threw a silver object at her. She caught it in her hand as he turned around and walked in the opposite direction, giving her a lazy wave. "See you later. Keep your hair outta your face, got it? You're much better without it over your eyes."

She looked at what she had on her palm.

A silver, snowflake-shaped clip? And what, he intended that she used it to keep her bangs in check?

_Is he telling me to freeze everything up instead? _she contemplated bemusedly.  
>Then she flipped the clip over and saw a note attached to it. A very, very small piece of paper. And as she opened it, she smiled equally small at it.<p>

**I'm sorry,** it read.

Well, she thought. I got my apology back in a different way.

Then she burst out laughing, causing the faraway redhead to wonder if she was laughing at his stupidity.

* * *

><p><strong>A little Chung x Ara moment dere 3 There are going to be hints of other side pairings aside from our main RS x EM. Hope you enjoyed the progress~ They're going to show more signs of fluff sooner or later, thanks much for sticking with me so far!<strong>


	7. Halloween

**Edit: Elesis (Grand Master) has made an entrance~ Due to an incident, Add will NOT be changing classes; he will simply have the APPEARANCE of Mastermind. He still has the abilities of Lunatic Psyker. **

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

* * *

><p>She had cleared up the problem of people thinking that she was lesbian. Only a short announcement that Elsword was just pulling one on her was enough to wash the misunderstandings away. No rumors had grown with her as the origin. Yet.<p>

Of course she didn't wear the snowflake clip or touch it again from where it sat on her desk. She would glance at it with a smile from time to time, to remind herself that Elsword Sieghart, albeit the biggest jerk she had ever seen in her life, wasn't always all that bad. But two weeks had passed, and she always dealt with the redhead with either violence or annoyance. Nothing much happened, much to her relief. She hoped it would stay this uneventful for the rest of the year, just as she had predicted before school had started.

Before she met Elsword, her mind corrected her in a matter-of-fact manner.

Sure as hell wasn't possible anymore, she sighed back.

Elsword, on the other hand, was bored out of his mind. He would tease the grapehead, play simple pranks on her, and make side comments, but nothing fun that he could have a huge laugh out of. Sure, she alone amused him, but he had made himself promise that he wouldn't cause a huge ruckus and piss her off anymore. The repairing money that the gym had cost was no 1,000 ED. (And since Elsword was not the richest, the money was a HUGE deal to him.)

But, alas. All things aside. The first big event of the year was coming up.

Add twirled a piece of dark metal in his hand, letting it spin between his fingers. He, too, was bored out of his head. He accidentally let the scrap tumble out of his grasp, and his strangely-colored eyes followed his plaything as it clattered onto the floor, right onto the white boots of someone who happened to be passing by.

Then they travelled up to who it was. Silver hair, he noted. Amber eyes. And... A Nasod core, deep blue in the center, sea-shaded at the edges. He could sense the photons gathering into charged electricity, his white hair standing up on the back of his neck. Yes, he thought devilishly, this was what he lived for! Toying with the demons themselves and getting out alive, just out of their reach!

"Pardon, Add Kim," the girl said. "No weaponry allowed on school premises."

"Oh, this?" he said, smiling innocently. "This can't hurt anybody, now can it?"

"Can it?" she echoed. "We shall see about that." And with that said, she deftly picked it up and held the sharp, glinting end to his neck. "I will not repeat myself again; can it?"

"Nope," he retorted merrily. "Won't hurt a bit! Hahahaha!" His laugh sounded maniacal. Nothing he could help with that. But that aside...what an interesting Nasod. She was as expressive as any Nasod could get. Who were the creators of such a perfect being? He had read many, many books, and so he searched through his jumbled, twisted brain for the information, much like how a machine would sort through ordered files. "Hmph." Eve tossed the metal scrap into the trash can before walking to her desk. "Masochist," the class representative muttered. "I had not believed that such an existence would be present in this school."

Meanwhile, the school student president was readying the speaker in her hands. She leaned in, her hair falling messily into her face again, and spoke loud and clear. "Halloween is coming up soon! Every class will be contributing something to this year's Halloween dance night! All class representatives will be holding vote on what their class would like to do. Afterwards, please slip in the suggestions into the box right outside of the office. Any inappropriate ideas or ridiculous thoughts will be burnt by my hand immediately. Volunteers willing to help out with preparing for the dance this Saturday will be appreciated as well!" The speaker shut off with a small _chik_.

"Thanks for the paper," she said to Rena. "I forgot all about what we were organizing this year." She slumped back into her chair and sighed. What a long week this was going to be.

"No problem, no problem~" Rena sang. "The vice president's job is to save the president's life-on-the-line when they're in trouble, right?"

"..." A bad feeling arose. She glanced anxiously up at the elf, afraid of what she would see.

"What're you wearing for Halloween this year?" Rena asked suggestively. Evilly. Maliciously. Any way to make her sound horrible and demonic.

"Ah-uh-uhm... I... Uh... My... witch costume again... I suppose...? Hehe... Hehehehe..." Now she was dead. Oh so very dead. She prayed to Rosso, Salvatore of Fire, her main element. _Please please please don't make me suffer any more, Rosso, I beg of-_

"Not again!" Rena exclaimed, her face morphing into one of fake disappointment. But that was on the outside. Both knew what was actually being planned on the inside, and both knew who had already won the battle. "You can't wear a witch outfit for the rest of high school years, you know? How about getting you dressed up nice and fancy this year? I'm sure many of the boys will be amazed by your true sexiness~"

"Madam Rena, I-"

"No excuses, my little grasshopper," she cut off with a deadly voice. Her eyes darkened a considerable amount as she glared at her with a withering stare. "You will be going shopping with me. Today. After school."

"...yes, Madam Rena," she gave in meekly.

* * *

><p>"Not this outfit!" she cried out. "It looks absolutely-ugh, how can I put it- It looks <em>horrible<em>. It looks **lewd**! It looks way too-too-"

"Sexy," the elf confirmed. "Mm! I like this one! This is what Halloween should be about!"

"Oh, no," she began to protest. "No, Rena, no no no no no. I am not buying this. I refuse to. I can't. I-this is too suggestive!"

"You won't be paying a cent," she said. "_I'll_ pay for it."

"The school president is supposed to look proper," she said, using her last resort. "Not perverted."

"You know what else the school president is supposed to be like?" Rena inquired rhetorically. "My, she needs to show the school's spirit off!"

"Please, Rena, I'll even toss on last year's idol ones-"

"Nuh-uh." She wouldn't budge. "I like these better." She turned away from the mirror and swung the curtains aside. "Excuse me, can I get one of these outfits for her? Oh? Yes, yes, they fit beautifully. She's cute, isn't she? That's good. Yeah. Alright then," Rena chirped happily. "That's one problem down!"

"What other," Aisha said dejectedly, "problems are there?"

She winked.

* * *

><p>"Hey, Elsword, what're you going to dress up for Halloween?" a woman asked from behind a counter. She was leaning casually on her elbow, giving her younger brother a sharp look when he didn't answer her question. "Elsword."<p>

He finally wrenched an answer out of himself. His sister always tried to force him into joining these kinds of stupid things. "Nothing as always, Elsa," he said, using her nickname. "Throwing something on for a holiday like this just...isn't me."

"Pfft," she snorted. "Your younger self would've argued stubbornly against that retarded logic of yours."

"Shuddup," he muttered, making his point in not talking by taking a long drink from his cup of coffee.

"Mm." Then the next customer came towards the famous red-haired cashier and began ordering. And when he was gone, she smirked (**EXACTLY** like her sibling) and continued with the unwanted conversation. "So. Who's this purple chick hangin' around you called? Aisha?" His eyebrow raised as he cast her a questioning glance, mouth still to the rim of the cup. "Straight A's, horrible at Home Economics, elemental mage of the highest order, president, popular, complete nerd, terrible at Arts and Crafts... Seems like someone you'd want to pull in, huh?"

At this, he finished his latte in one go and put the cup back onto the table. Quite moody today, Elesis observed, amused. "Thanks," he said gruffly before slamming the cafe's door behind him.

She chuckled as the bat decorations hanging from the ceiling fluttered from the force, drawing the attention from nearby curious customers. Oh, how her immature brother was finally growing up. Then, turning the chuckle into an awkward cough, she straightened her black apron and went on to the next batch of orders.

* * *

><p>And, somewhere else, another person was enjoying their day for the first time in a long while. She had accidentally (quote: accidentally) tripped and spilt her "<em>water<em>" onto someone's hair. And, surprisingly, (quote: surprisingly) that person's hair grew to tremendous lengths and would grow back every time he cut it short.

Add was obviously pissed. He had short hair for a reason. He hated long hair, always in his face, blowing **EVERYWHERE** when there was even a slight breeze. He couldn't even take notes without his bangs covering his eyes, obscuring his peripheral. What kind of concoction had she even brewed up to make this happen?! So much for... "Queen of Nasods." More like "Snobby Little Bitch of Nasods." Here he was, thinking that she was the perfect being...

She still was. If he got a hold of her and thoroughly examined her body, he could probably put a few tweaks into her personality data and sift through her memories on how to get rid of his annoying hair. The potion she dumped on his head kept making everything long and _stay_ long. All this for his scrap of metal.

His mouth full of colorful words, he felt someone tap on his shoulder and turned around. "Good afternoon, Mr..." A small, unbidden smile tugged at her lips. She did well to hide it, but it was still noticeable. "Add Kim. Your appearance seems to have changed drastically. May I inquire as to what happened overnight?"

He spewed more rainbow words as he stormed away, his ponytail whipping out of sight as he turned a corner. Laughter trailed after him, finding it musical despite his rage at the petite girl. Every part of him said that he needed to get back at her, but somewhere else, something whispered that he wanted to hear her laugh again.

* * *

><p>The school decided that they wanted to make this year's event better than last year's. They mashed in traditional festivals and modern Halloween all throughout the campus, causing the normal spooky tests-of-courage cancel due to the abnormal festivity in this one. Each class had a different stand with different activities and varieties of candy. Common sweets like Chocolatey Witchcaps and Echo's Fairy Dust were in one class, whereas more expensive delicacies like Jee Ae Whites were situated at a harder game. This let the students wander around as much as they wanted, and allowed them to try all the games in worthwhile prizes.<p>

Costumes that contrasted starkly against personalities caught attention easily. Examples were harmless bookworms in princesses of the dark clothes, bright and positive people in deadly revealing swordswomen get-ups, and angelic, quiet girls in commanding, empress garments. One of them, however, made girls squeal. No, not the red-headed Rune Slayer in normal clothes that still attracted eyes. The golden-haired, soft-skinned boy covered in fluffy, furry whiteness.

A brunette passing by in elegant clothing saw him and approached him cheerily. "Hi, Chung!" she said.

"Oh, Ara!" He rubbed the back of his neck with a paw. "What're you supposed to be?"

"Hm?" She caught herself staring at him and blinked. "Ah, I'm a black magic user with the spirit of a fox! Rawr!" she growled adorably.

"You look nice with your hair like that," he divulged. She hesitated and saw two ears nestled in his long hair.

"You-You too! Are you a dog?" Ara innocently asked, tilting her head to side.

"I'm..." Chung seemed embarrassed about his costume. "Really, I didn't want to. But a friend of mine kind of...forced me to, so I'm dressed up as a white wolf today." He didn't seem to notice that he was cute in a pure way.

Ara smiled at his reasoning and asked, "Well, what are we standing around for? The white wolf and the black fox, onwards to candy and games! Come on, let's go!" He let himself be dragged about, although he did spot another pair that was bickering and making a huge commotion.

"So. Add Kim. How do you appreciate it?"

"What the hell!" The white-haired boy threw his arms up into the air. In actuality, everyone liked the Lunatic Psyker better this way; this Halloween night, he seemed much more... prettier, some could say, in his cosplay, than his usual punk-styled clothes. "I am _not_ a servant of yours!"

"An empress could create her own servants, but others would hire one. And I, Eve, is hiring you now." And indeed, Add was donning on a very flashy butler suit. In fact, it seemed like he and Eve were a pair, her in her clothes of a queen and he of a servant sworn to protect her. He cursed his luck (and he never had much in the first place anyway) and began to walk off when a black metal machine built in a very odd ball-ish shape stopped his retreats. "Wherever does my servant think he is going? He is going to escort his mistress, am I correct?"

"No," he said through gritted teeth, "you're absolutely, horrendously wrong."

"Oh, pardon my mistake," she said, her voice still serene. "Please correct me as such, dear servant."

"Stop addressing me as servant!" he snapped. He had half a mind to throw some more metal at her when he felt a powerful shove from the ball-ish creation. He stumbled back and tripped over a second one, white and exactly like it's black pair. And, unfortunately for him, it was what she was sitting on. He fell backwards and landed in her lap. "..." Eve raised her hand.

Elsword, observing all of this with a snicker, left after he witnessed the slap. He was actually pondering what the purple-headed girl was going to wear. In all honesty, he expected her to wear her regular clothes (partially so he wouldn't be the only one). But as he was strolling around, subconsciously keeping an eye out for that noticeable color in the crowds he passed by, he bumped, hard, into someone. He looked down.

She was on her butt, glaring up at him. "You-!" she started, before realizing her position was revealing. "Pervert!" Aisha growled before picking herself back up. He smirked at her response.

"Wow, nice outfit you've got there, Aisha Greimyst. You sure that's appropriate?"

"I'm not the one who chose it, alright?" she grumbled, not meeting the surrounding people's eyes. "All this skin showing is really...bothering me." He inspected her, his eyes traveling up and down her body as they walked side by side down the hallways. She saw this and scowled at him, but was too busy clutching her arms with her hands to hit him. She was drawing a whole ton of attention, and she lowered her face so no one else could see it but him. She began shivering slightly from the cold air gusting in from the open doors.

The Rune Slayer did not miss that, even though he seemed like he wasn't paying attention. The girl next to him was almost like a hurt, feeble animal, so much that he felt like sheltering her. Except she was an animal that casted glares everywhere and sighed constantly at her misfortune.

The rest of the students, who had come late, crammed into the jolly hallways of the school._ As if the air wasn't choking me enough_, Elsword thought as irritation sparked inside of him. The ruckus and racket that they were making from the games and displays was beginning to hurt his ears. "Aisha?" he shouted over the din.

"What?" she said, biting her lip as another gust of wind blew in. Her knees had locked in her place, and she almost got knocked over as a couple of girls pushed past her.

He steadied her. "Want to go outside? I can barely hear you." She nodded frantically; tonight was not her night. She wanted desperately to find a heater, comfortable, proper clothes, and a bed. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to go home. Rena could handle the rest by herself, right? Everything was going smoothly as planned.

He dragged her outside (after squishing themselves against more people) and both took a deep breath of fresh air that flowed into their nostrils. It was refreshing and cleared their minds of most of their previous annoyance. She blew a strand of hair out of her face as she sat down on the cement. He leaned on the wall and gazed up as the stars peeked out from behind their nightly veils. As they twinkled distantly and coldly to him, Aisha sneezed. It was a cute sneeze, he thought, and that was so hilarious in the idea itself that he busted out laughing.

"What?" the mage asked indignantly. "I'm cold."

"Sn-sneeze," he managed to say through his wheezes of laughter. Then he calmed down and took a seat next to her. She was trembling beside him and the tremors vibrated throughout his body. "Geez," he said. "You make me feel like I'm getting cold too."

"I can't help that," Aisha complained, sniffling. "It's freezing in these-these clothes, okay?" A smile touched his lips.

"Yeah, yeah. Give me your hand."

"H-Huh?" Impatient, he gently took one of her hands. With a finger, he drew something in the middle of her palm. A flush of warmth flowed from the point in her palm. It circled in her body and made her feel like she was sitting next to a fireplace.

But she was still shaking. "Are you still cold? Did that not work or something?" He was obviously confused.

"No," she huffed. "You writing on my hand."

"..."

"It tickled," she stated when he didn't catch on. He grinned at that, and she was mortified at her revelation. With that, he snaked an arm behind her and began to tickle her stomach. She gasped and fought down her laughter as best as she could, but his fingers were onto every sensitive spot on her stomach, and soon enough, she was in a mad fit of giggles, desperately trying to get his hands off of her. She ended up curling up into a ball and rolling away from him.

There was a comfortable quiet that hung in the air between them as he kept staring at the stars and she kept staring at him. Inside the school, there was a loud roar of cheering coming from the theatre's direction. The music that the band was performing in the concert thrummed heavy, lasting beats into the ground. Finally, he pushed himself away from the groundc and stretched, yawning. "Well. I'm going to go now."

"What," she said. "You're going to leave now?"

"Hm?" he said in a faraway-voice, as if he were thinking about something from the past. Then he smirked, the wind blowing his dark red hair over one of his eyes. For a short second, she thought that he was captivating. "Oh? You want me to stay? What, can't get enough of me?" he teased.

The moment disappeared and her scowl returned to her features. "Hell no," she said. "I just want something from you." He seemed to read her mind and crouched down next to her. She held her hand out, and he wrote another rune on it, his skin brushing lightly on hers. Then he broke contact as another tidal surge of warmth bloomed.

Elsword was already a prick of crimson in the moonlight when the spell's effect wore out. She was left shivering again, and she called out, "You should have a permanent spell for that!"

She was walking towards where her chauffeur was waiting for her when she heard him shout back. "Use your head and light a fire of your own!" So she did. But Aisha was too busy remembering the heat from his spell and the rare kindness in his expression. She was mulling over that and thought that her flame didn't produce enough thermal energy to keep the cold off anyways.

The spot in the middle of her palm where he had touched left a small tingle when she climbed into the limousine and doused her fire.

* * *

><p><strong>. o. Pardon for taking so long to pull this chapter off! I was stumped. Like, just stumped. I'm not even very satisfied with this chapter ;_; I can only hope that you guys were, and if not, so very sorry! QoQ But the state testing is coming up next week, and I probably won't have as much time to write again.<strong>

**Anyhow, thank you for taking your time to read my writing!**


	8. Tea and Funnel Cake

**Chapter 8**

* * *

><p>"Oh!" she yelped in surprise as he moved.<p>

He rolled his eyes. "C'mon, it can't be that hard. We've been doing this for how long now?"

"It's still difficult, okay?" she retorted, unable to keep her face indifferent as she looked straight into his face. She tried to keep them from wandering back to his eyes and focused past his shoulder, but, ultimately? She failed. "And it's pretty big."

"Move your hips, dammit, it's important that you do," he said, ignoring her comment. "Put your hands _here._ Not **there**. It's...uncomfortable if you put them there."

"O-Okay!" And she complied him, snickering a bit when he sighed in relief. "What it really that uncomfortable?"

"Yeah," he grumbled. "I guess dancing just isn't something for you."

"I mean," she tried to make an excuse, "you can't exactly just read about the motions from a book and get it perfect..." Her irises dragged away from his own and resorted to staring at his vest-covered chest.

"Oi, Aisha." A step to the left.

"...Hm?" A twirl, flourish.

"STOP STEPPING ON MY FEET EVERY OTHER GODDAMN SECOND!"

"You're just in the way!" she replied, her mouth melting from its already-unstable form. Never did she get so embarrassed from just **dancing**. Since when did she care, anyways?

_That's right, Aisha. Just stop caring and step all over his feet if you want. It doesn't matter anyways._

_But...my grade for P.E...!_

Camilla blew into her black whistle and waited for everyone's attention to gather towards her. "Alright, testing time! Choose a partner in the next minute, first come first serve!"

She glanced up.

He was peering down at her.

Silent agreement established.

A poor girl came up to them. She was one of those nice, kind, innocent, and often, very considerate of others kind of female. Her hair was a short, shoulder-length brown, and her eyes were a cloudy azure. "U-Uhm...Elsword, would you mind if I-uhm-paired up with y-"

"Hahahaha, sorry, I'm already with Aisha here...!" With that, he grabbed her by the arm and tugged her close to him, as if displaying the claim he had on her as a partner.

"O-Okay..." The girl walked away, slightly dejected, but everyone else got to work with getting a partner now that the main attractions were taken by each other. Aisha was delighted when she saw one of her good, frequent partners (Chung) offer a hand to a black-haired student. She giggled when she noticed that the girl's cheeks were heavily tinted in a rosy color as she graciously took his outstretched hand.

"Alright, one minute's up! Testing time is starting now! Everyone, line up and tell me you and your partner's name and what dances you're doing. I will call you out based on last name and the dance that you're doing."

_It's just a dancing test,_ Aisha attempted to reassure herself. _You're usually not too worried about your tests. You tried hard for this, right? You can make it!_

She was spacing out so much she missed it when her name was called the first time. Even Elsword heard it the second time. The third time, he gave her a hard shove and jolted her out of her mantra of self-support. "It's our turn to dance!" he whispered. His warm breath tickled her ear, making her jump and skitter over to the center of the gym.

"Here are some basic staples for you to follow. 1, you may not talk to your partner during the dance. If you so much as utter a word, you'll be flat-out given a zero for it. 2, if your partner fails, you fail too. 3, make sure to not kill yourself while you're at it!" And with that, the slow-sounding, classical music started.

_Uh-uh-wait..._ Elsword's feet started shifting, and she, with her slightly-off reaction time, shuffled out of rhythm with him. _What did he say earlier? Hips? Hands? Moving what?_

He brought her down low for a sweep, then yanked her back up. _Ahhhhh, what do I do?!_

She heard the instructor give a cluck of disappointment. With the gym stonily hushed save for the music, it resounded in her mind over and over again like a repeating curse.

The second song crackled into life through the speakers and blasted something less solemn. _Isn't this where he told me to put my hands?_ She reached out and put them on his thigh, near his way-too-large belt. His expression morphed into something like...panic? He was getting kinda red; did he have a fever of something?

He subtly jerked his head to the left. To any normal person, he would be telling her to move her hand **LEFT.**

But Aisha, top of the class, president of the school, did not take it normally. She processed the signal and took it that, facing _his_ direction and point of view, he wanted her to move her hand **RIGHT**.

So she slapped her hand a lot closer to the right than she intended to and hit something underneath his pants that she shouldn't have.

"What the-?!"

Camilla couldn't figure out why the boy's face suddenly went ashen and why the blood began to rush into the girl's whole head.

"Disqualified," she shouted.

* * *

><p>"Nooo..." Aisha mumbled, eyeing her grade paper with a tearful gaze. Stamped on it in heart-breaking red was a<p>

**ZERO.**

"Well... I guess that couldn't be helped, huh?" She dropped her head to the desk, coming into contact with it nice and hard. She winced lightly at her foolish action but rested on the cool surface of it.

"It's all your fault!" she growled, unable to comprehend and sink in the fact that- "That was the first zero I ever got in my life!"

"Oh, hey now, you're the one who grabbed my-"

"S-Shut up!" she blurted hastily, wanting more than anything to stop him from saying what happened. "Your directions just weren't clear enough!"

"Hn," he hummed. "My directions were as clear as they could get without the usage of words, don't you think?" A cocky smile displayed itself across his mouth. "And admit it, you wante-"

She summoned her winged staff out of the air and swung the metal stick down to connect to the top of his head. "You're such a pervert! I really didn't mean to do it anyway!"

_See, she's cute even when she's _flustered. "OW!" She whacked him again. "OW! Alright, alright!" he submitted to defeat. "Whatever you say."

"Hmph."

"Hey, you wanna hang out for a bit? Don't feel like going home yet." At this request, she gawked at him. "Yes or no, it's that simple," he said, amused now that he saw she wasn't as intelligent as she seemed. A bit stupid, and that's what he liked best about her.

"Okay, but... Do you want me to get dressed up?" She cocked her head to the side, seeing him through a more horizontal perspective.

"Dressed up?" He made a face. "Why would you need to get dressed up for hanging out?"

"Y-You don't?" she stuttered, surprised. Her parents brought her up, telling her every single time that she needed to be dressed properly before going out anywhere with anyone at all. Apparently Elsword's parents never told him that?

"Of course not." Now he was eyeing her in a strange fashion, as if she were a new species of organism found in school. "Hanging out? Just wear whatever, it doesn't even matter."

"Won't people judge you though?" she murmured under her breath, but as usual, he picked it up effortlessly.

"No." He paused. "What kind of life have you been living, Aisha?"

Touchy subject. She swerved away from it and countered with another question. "Have your parents never taught you any manners? If someone is bringing you somewhere, you should always wear good clothes and be polite."

"'Be polite.'" He smirked. "Sure."

"Oh shut up," she said. "Let's just go."

As they stood up and walked down the sidewalk and across the road, he asked, "Any idea where to go?"

"No?" She was curious as to where HE was thinking of going. "Lead the way, I guess."

He was thinking of maybe the park, but almost EVERYONE had been to a park before. And that would seem like a date to him, which was most definitely NOT his intention. As a lone cloud drifted by the sea of blue, an idea sprang forth from his oh-so-brilliant mind. _Hm, the café's near here. Elesis SHOULD be on break right now, so I'm pretty sure we can avoid her..._ "Hey, have you been to this café called Feu Fleur before?"

"French?" she inquired, now intrigued. "No, but judging from the name, it seems like it'd be a decent place to stop by. Although," she continued, seemingly interested, "I wonder what a regular café is like."

"What do you mean?" he asked, shooting a sideways glance at her. "A café is a café. What kind of life do you live?"

"Café, café~" she was singing, avoiding the touchy subject. But he took no note of this. Aisha skipped ahead of him, her pigtails flowing after her. He sighed and called out.

"You're going the wrong way!"

* * *

><p>She was crouched in a corner, behind the wall to the entrance of the café's kitchen, her eyes flashing as she spotted the pair of students sitting at a table. "Ohohoho... My Elsword is growing up so fast already...~! Did you think that you could escape from me even if you came during my break...?"<p>

He was facepalming at whatever the girl had said to him, but she could see his body tremble from his laughs. She continued stalking him, in that corner like a shadow, with that maid-like black and white apron draping over her knees.

"Elesis." The voice behind her had come out from the kitchen in the back, and she watched as a white dog-like man, short and stubby in stature, emerge. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Oh. Well." She fumbled for a proper excuse and found one, hoping that it wouldn't sound completely fake when she uttered it. "I'm just watching over the café, to make sure nothing goes wrong."

"But you are on your-"

"Even if I'm on my break," she added hastily. "Nothing could go wrong with just supervising the shop, right?"

"...Everything can go wrong," the man muttered, but he let her go anyways. As he left, a faint scent of cigarettes trailed after him. Elesis wrinkled her nose, greatly disliking that smell. She would have a talk with him later, but... _I mean, he let me off the hook this time. Maybe I should just forget about this._

While she was twisting herself in circles through her mind as whether or not to chastise the dog-man later, Elsword shot a glance to where his sister was crouching, looking like she was about to go mentally insane. _Her eyes are darting everywhere... Is she okay or what?_

"Elsword?" Aisha leaned forward to wave her hand in his face, and he snapped back to attention. "What're you looking at?"

"Oh, uhh..." She followed his gaze, and, surprisingly, Elesis was gone.

"There's nothing there," she said. "Are you seeing some hallucinations or something?"

He stared at her. "What?" she asked, averting her eyes. _Why did I just avoid making eye contact?_ she thought, thoroughly startled over this trivial matter. "A-Anyways," she continued, trying to strike up a conversation. "Uhm..."

He continued staring at her. "W-What are you staring at me for?!" she squeaked, collapsing under the pressure.

Elsword smirked, satisfied at the reaction she gave him. "To make you feel uncomfortable," he answered, twirling the spoon around in his coffee. The heart-shaped cream dissipated as he made circles with the utensil. "So? What was it you wanted to tell me?"

"Give me your hand," she said, picking her cup up to sip from it. The white porcelain was stood out against her dark brown gloves, and she winced. "Hot..." she grumbled, covering her lips with her wrist.

"Yeah, be careful, this place makes everything burning hot." He gave her his hand, feeling rarely compliant that day.

She frowned at the large palm set in front of her and sighed. "Take your gloves off too?"

"Take them off yourself."

"..." She scowled but yanked hard on it, slipping the black fingerless gloves off. "What am I, your maid?"

"If you want to be." He grinned slyly at her. "You already got the outfit, right? Now all you need to do is wear that, come to my house for the night, and wake me up in the morning with a 'Good morning, Master El-'"

The staff swung down.

* * *

><p>"Seriously, you need to stop hitting me," he groaned, rubbing the several small lumps on his head. "I'm gonna get a concussion like that one day."<p>

"It's your fault for saying something perverted like that again!"

"My adorable little brother said what...?" someone said, making "huhu... huhuhu..." sounds behind them. She shuddered and yelped, doing a 180 to face them.

"Who is this...?" Aisha asked, now curious instead of creeped out. "She looks exactly like you, Elsword! Only she has... She has..." Her amethyst eyes wandered over to the older woman's chest area and deadpanned, "Breasts."

"I'm Elsword's sister, Elesis!" she introduced herself, but then whirled and grabbed her sibling by the shoulders. "What did you say to her?"

"Let go of me, Sis," said the red-haired boy bluntly. "Don't worry about it. I didn't say i'd like to marry her this time."

"Y-Y-You what?!" Aisha screeched. Him? Elsword Sieghart, **PROPOSING** to a girl? What kind of girl would like him in the first place, anyways?!

"That was a long time ago," he divulged, saying it like it was nothing. "When I was like seven, I told this girl that I wanted her to marry me or something. I actually don't remember her, but Sis says I did."

"That's not the point~" Elesis said sweetly. "What did you say to our cute, petite, genius magician Aisha here?"

"Nothing," he tartly responded.

"He told me to be his maid," Aisha helpfully quipped in.

"Oiya, Elsword? Is that what you told her?" Despite the dark tone in her words, she was pouring ice cubes into a plastic bag, sealing it and dumping it on her little brother's head. She patted it, hard, to make sure he understood just how much his head hurt. And he did, as his eyes started watering and he had to bite his lip from saying "Ow."

_So this is what having siblings is like,_ Aisha thought, feeling quite envious. She had always been the only child, and that placed a lot on her shoulders. Especially since the rich didn't just get money from nowhere and had duties to perform too. Even if she did have a little brother or sister, she most likely would never have the time for them.

"So, in compensation, miss," Elesis said, stretching and yawning (just like her brother, too), "how about I treat you to some funnel cake?"

* * *

><p>"El!" She grinned happily as the burst of flavor reached her taste buds, the enriching juices spreading on her tongue. "This is pretty good!"<p>

"Isn't it?" Elsword slung an arm over the bench they were sitting at near the park. "I still don't know why she would compensate for _you _when I'm the one who's clearly hurt, though." While she was putting some more into her mouth and savoring the sweet godly goodness of it, the Rune Slayer watched a couple of kids mess around on the play structure. It was a boy and a girl, and they both seemed so innocent and harmless as they swung across the monkey bars, skipping one at a time.

"Hey, you okay? You look a bit off." She tilted her head, bending over to take a peek at him. He hadn't realized it but he had gradually been sinking his vision lower and lower until he was facing the ground.

"Huh? Oh. I.. I was just thinking over some things Sis said."

"You mean the girl you asked to marry you?" She giggled. "You know, that probably would've been sweet if it weren't you who proposed."

"Wow," he muttered. "Thanks."

"Any time," she replied. "But what're you thinking about?"

"I once asked Sis about what the girl looked like. But she said that she had never seen her, only that I came running home to her telling her all about it. And that I never said a word about the girl ever again. She also said that... A month later, when she asked me what happened to her, I told her that I didn't know who she was talking about."

"Hmmm... Maybe a memory-altering spell? But that's pretty high-leveled, and not to mention it's illegal too... I wouldn't see a reason to alter your memory, unless someone hated you that much for asking the girl to marry you."

She started watching the kids too, but when she noticed that his funnel cake was left untouched, she snatched the plate from his hands and stole a bite from it. "H-Hey!"

"If you're not going to eat it," she said triumphantly, "then I'm not going to let it to waste!"

He took the plate back and exhaled a breath. "I really can't let my guard down around you, can I?"

She was quiet, like she was actually considering the notion of what he just uttered. "Nope!" she finally declared. "Anyways..."

"What?"

She stuffed her mouth full with the funnel cake and tossed the paper plate into the trash can next to them. "Today was...well...the most fun I had in a while, really." Elsword gaped at her, and she shot him a glare. "I don't live a carefree life like you get to, you know."

"You're happy just from going to a café and eating a funnel cake?" he said, still unable to comprehend it.

"Yes," she snapped. "Yes. I am. Now just take my gratitude and stuff it into your already-overgrown ego, will you?"

_Wow. Talk about mood shifts. She just went from cheerful to downright tetchy._ "And.." she continued. "Those are swings, right?" Aisha pointed towards the direction of four black seats, each shaped almost like a crescent moon. All of them were hanging from a dark blue metal structure, chains creaking as the seats moved due to the gentle wind.

"Don't tell me you've never been to a park before, either," he said, standing up. "Yeah, those are swings alright." Then he stuck his hand out, offering it to her.

She stared at it.

Since it didn't seem like she was about to take it any time soon, he grabbed her hand, feeling that small figure fit into his large palm again.

"W-Where are you taking me?" she squealed, and the children on the monkey bars caught sight of them.

"Look, the big kids are on a date!" she heard one of them say, and her cheeks turned bright red.

"Here," he said, sitting her down on a swing, looking unfazed by the little kid's comment. "Have fun. You know how to swing too, right?"

"O-Of course!" She lifted her chin up. "I studied all the methods and theories on the motion, acceleration, and velocity of swinging!"

"Which means," he said under his breath, "you DON'T know how to swing." Elsword strolled behind her and gave her a rough shove, causing her to shrill, "What are you doing?!"

"Teaching you how to do one of the most basic things everyone should know how to do," he said, giving her another shove as she swung back towards him.

"W-Watch where you're putting your hands, you pervert!"

"Whoops."

"Don't you 'whoops' me!"

"Just focus on swinging your legs!" She did as she was told, and eventually he stopped pushing her and sat on the swing next to her.

The air current was flat on her face, and she rejoiced in the sensation of cold wind on her face. It was almost like she was flying, although she knew that she could have just sat on her staff for that. But this was different, probably something she would've never been able to do if she hadn't just taken a risk and went with Elsword today. After all, if her parents found out that she was hanging out here...

Soon enough, she grew tired from all the swinging and slowed herself down by sticking a foot out into the sand. As her swing screeched to a stop, she saw Elsword observing her with some sort of unidentifiable visage. "Oh. By the way, I still need your hand for earlier."

He stuck it out, saying nothing.

She took his gloves off again and held his hand face up, so his the skin of his palm was showing. "You know," she explained as she traced something on it, "they say that you can tell how many children you'll have if you count the lines on your hand."

"Well?" he asked. "How many will I have, O Great Seer of the Future?"

She pouted at the expression and said, "Three."

"Give me yours, then." So she gave him her hand, and he counted, tracing them just like she did. Honestly, it tickled so much she just wanted to squirm away from his fingertips. "Oh hey, you're gonna have three too!"

_Wait._ A connection flashed between both of them as they simultaneously thought of the same result. _If you're going to have three, and I'm going to have three, then...?!_

"N-No way," she said, voicing her confusion.

"Of course not," he replied, appalled at the mere idea of it.

"It's not like we're going to marry each other anyways, right?" the two of them said at the same time.

The swings creaked, although whether in agreement or denial, they couldn't say.

* * *

><p><strong>Ahh~ I finally got this chapter out! You know, the first time I wrote this chapter, I had it all <strong>completed,** but then I just had to make a blunder out of myself and accidentally delete it. e.e I got kind of sad and disheartened afterwards, even as I tried to rewrite it again, but I sort of gave up for about two weeks or so until i slapped myself and was like "WAKE UP YOU LAZYASS." So I finally got around to finishing it, except it was different and better! ^^ I hope y'all readers are proud of fat lazy me for pulling this out! :'D But anyhow, as always, thank you for taking your time to read my humble writings, and I hope you enjoyed it! I wish you a good day now~**


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